OUTSIDE THE CAPITAL: LOCAL LEADERS DISCUSS

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 000103

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ELA
LONDON FOR MILLER, PARIS FOR NOBLES

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/03/2020
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON EIND EINV ETRD CASC CVIS KISL
KLIG, KPAO, SCUL, SOCI, SY
SUBJECT: OUTSIDE THE CAPITAL: LOCAL LEADERS DISCUSS
CHALLENGES FOR HOMS

REF: A. DAMASCUS 00102

B. DAMASCUS 00093

C. DAMASCUS 00028

D. DAMASCUS 00033

E. 09 DAMASCUS 00797

Classified By: CDA Charles Hunter for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: The Charge met a range of political,
religious, and business leaders during a January 26-27 visit
to Homs. In addition to a long discussion with Homs Governor
Iyad Ghazal (ref B),the Charge met Melkite Catholic
Archbishop Isidore Battikha, Greek Patriarchate Deputy
Patriarch Father Afram, "Awan" (Kuwait-based newspaper)
journalist Hanna Aboud, senior leadership at the National
Sugar Company, and American citizen wardens. He also toured
al-Ardh, a Jesuit-administered farm outside the city offering
educational and therapeutic opportunities to mentally
challenged children and young adults from nearby rural
communities. The only sour note in the trip was the MFA,s
last-minute cancellation of a scheduled meeting with
"al-Ouruba" newspaper Editor-in-Chief Issa Ismael. End
Summary.

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The Christian Minority
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2. (C) Queried about stories of Sunnis being paid to convert
to the Shi'a faith, Melkite Catholic Archbishop Isidore
Battikha claimed the practice was widespread. He dismissed,
however, the idea that these paid conversions reflected a
real spiritual or religio-political shift. The real
incentive for conversion, he argued, was economic privation,
especially in the rural communities. In a separate meeting,
the journalist Hanan Aboud said of these conversions that
"Iran is the problem; they play a dirty role here," though he
was unable to say with certainty whether the Iranians were
paying people to convert. He observed there had always been
a sizable but quiet Shi'a population in Homs. Now,
presumably as a result of growing Iranian regional influence,
the Homsy Shi'a were emboldened and more public in their
faith.


3. (C) When asked for his reaction on recent public attacks
against the Syrian Grand Mufti (ref A) for allegedly
insensitive comments about the Prophet Muhammad, Battikha
said he was unaware of the rift. "The Damascene Sunni don't
accept the Mufti because he is from Aleppo," Battikha
sniffed, suggesting urban alliances might be at the root of
the problem.


4. (C) In separate meetings, Battikha and Greek Patriarchate
Deputy Patriarch Father Afram both attested to the excellent
relationship their churches enjoyed with their Muslim
counterparts. Battikha, who served in Damascus for 15 years
before transferring to the Homs diocese, argued that
Christians and Muslims had stronger relations in Homs than in
Damascus. He attributed this to the fact that the two
populations lived "closer together" in Homs. Battikha told
us he was generally asked to speak in mosques two or three
times a year and that he had invited imams to give speeches
in his churches. The two groups did not, however, "pray
together." Battikha reported there were roughly 45,000
Catholics in his diocese, second in size only to Damascus.
When asked whether his congregations were still declining in
number due to out-migration from the governate, Battikha
assessed the population was now stable. He speculated
economic hardship throughout the country made the larger
cities less attractive to young people than in the past.


5. (C) Father Afram described his diocese's membership as
having stabilized at 150,000 after years of out-migration.
Economic difficulties in South America, once a major
destination for Homsy Christians, had slowed migration. Like
Battikha, Afram characterized the relationship between his
church (Syria's largest Christian denomination) and Muslims
as being better than in other countries. Though people did
not pray together, they participated in common religious
celebrations like weddings. Further, Muslims regularly
prayed before the tomb of the St. Elian, a third-century
martyr from Homs, whose church in the city is the only one in
the world named for him.

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On the Cusp of Greater Prosperity?

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6. (C) During a January 27 tour of the National Sugar Company
(NSC, established in 2008),CEO Anlo du Pisani (protect) and
Chairman Muhammad Najib Assaf figured the total investment in
the NSC, including working capital, to be 160 million
dollars, the largest non-oil investment in the country. The
company is a "destination refinery" and primarily targets the
Syrian sugar market, which du Pisani told us was one of the
largest in the world at about 800,000 tons per annum. The
U.S. company Cargill, a minority NSC owner, was heavily
involved in the plant's construction and in managing the
company's raw sugar trade with Brazil. As NSC operations
increased, du Pisani and Assaf told us they anticipated
moving into the Iraqi sugar market.


7. (C) Commenting on the nearby industrial city of Hissyah
(ref B),Du Pisani expressed doubt about the site's long-term
viability. NSC had opted not to build in Hissyah because the
location lacked a stable water supply. The NSC's decision
combined perhaps with the Homs governor's recognition of the
economic threat NSC represented to a sugar refinery already
operating in Hissyah, upset the local government and set in
motion the governor's effort to block the NSC from acquiring
land outside Hissyah. According to du Pisani, Assaf's
successfully appealed to the President's office -- through
the First Lady's family, who are "Homsy" -- which in turn
forced Governor Ghazal to back down.


8. (C) Once the NSC's factory was up and running, its output
quickly dwarfed that of its Syrian competition. In August
2009, just as world sugar prices were spiking, the Ministry
of Trade accused the NSC of trying to monopolize the sugar
market and confiscated all its stock, between 4,000 to 6,000
tons of refined sugar (ref E). SARG compensation for the
seizure fell well short of its market value and the NSC had
sought greater recompense through the Syrian courts. Because
trade is viewed as a national security issued, du Pisani
complained, the NSC's case landed in Military Court. He
doubted whether NSC would get a satisfactory outcome unless
company lawyers succeeded in getting the case transferred to
a different court. In general, though, du Pisani and Assaf
were optimistic about the company's future, noting with
satisfaction that the NSC had recently won a tender to supply
sugar to the government cooperatives.

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Helping the Handicapped
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9. (C) The Charge distributed educational gifts to the
students at "al-Ardh," a Jesuit-administered farm on the
outskirts of Homs providing educational and therapeutic
facilities to mentally handicapped children and young adults
from the surrounding villages. The children, both Christian
and Muslim, work on the farm as part of their education and,
in some cases, have the opportunity to work there after
graduation. The director, Father Nawras Sammour, said
tuition was set at 300 Syrian pounds ($6.50) per month,
though the actual cost per student was closer to 7,200 Syrian
pounds ($158.00). It was important, he explained, that
families pay a little so as to feel they were contributing to
their child's future. Al-Ardh also offers educational
opportunities to local farmers on how to improve agricultural
production.

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Wardens' Meeting
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9. (C) American wardens for the Homs region expressed their
hope that improved Syrian-U.S. bilateral relations might
warrant more consular outreach to the region. Regularly
scheduled consular visits to Homs would, they contended,
reduce the heavy travel burden on families seeking passport
renewals and notarials. The wardens also received guidance
from Conoff on new procedures for both non-immigrant visa
appointments and American citizen services.


10. (C) There was general disapproval among the wardens of
recent TSA regulations subjecting Syria to increased security
measures at U.S. airports (refs C and D). One warden said it
was unacceptable that he, an American citizen who had lived
in the U.S. for more than 20 years, would have to "walk
through one of those machines" just because he was arriving
from Syria. This sentiment was widely encountered throughout

the Homs trip.


11. (C) Comment: There was an undeniable vibrancy to the city
and people of Homs that belied the city's reputation as
somewhat of a backwater. The governor's ambitions for the
region (ref B) and the presence of successful businesses like
the NSC suggest Homs may very well be on the cusp of greater
economic prosperity, providing public-private partnerships do
not flounder in a sea of bureaucratic red tape and political
egos. Our visit made clear that outside the capital, there
is an abiding interest in building stronger links to the U.S.
on a political and economic level, and that the Homsy are
tracking the improving U.S.-Syria bilateral relationship with
great interest and hope. End Comment.
HUNTER